You want a plan that makes you excited to bounce out of bed in the morning and get to work.

Or at the very least, you want to feel like you know what you’re doing. Which is a pretty small dream to have so why is it so illusive sometimes?

We tend to think if we can just get our shit together and come up with a good plan - then we can make our creative dreams real. But it's a lot more complicated than that.

Planning is where the invisible ethereal essence and vision of your dream coalesce with outer-world action and work and transform into a real, live, fully birthed creative project.

I mean that's kind of a big deal.

So even thought we've all failed at creative planning I think we should pat ourselves on the back just for stepping onto the field and giving it a shot.

This is brave work. And over the next few weeks I'm going to be blogging about creative planning in hopes of offering some insight and ideas to help you brave the many pitfalls of the creative planning process.

Starting at the beginning: Before you can make a workable plan you have to know WHY you want a plan. I mean I know this seems obvious, but give this a chance - really give this some thought.

• I want to feel sure about how to make this happen.
• I want to feel organized.
• I want to feel confident that I know what to do.

Then, once you have some answers that feel true - dig deeper.

• I want to feel sure about how to make this happen BECAUSE: I’m worried that it’s not going to work out. I need to see it all planned out in black and white before I am going to believe that I can really do this.
• I want to feel organized BECAUSE: I feel so disorganized and like I just don’t know what to do or how to do it. When I think about this I feel chaotic and frustrated.
• I want to feel confident that I know what to do BECAUSE: I don’t trust myself to follow through. I have tried and given up so many times before.

You need to work with the uncomfortable feeling that gets triggered when you dig deeper, otherwise those feelings will take over and sabotage your planning process without you even noticing.

You want to create a plan that is supportive of you, your creative process and the result you are looking for. To get there you need to do your planning from a place of deep alignment with your inner wisdom, your creative genius and the heart and soul of your creative project. Because otherwise you are unconsciously planning from your inner critics, un-helpful patterns and limiting beliefs. So you start by clearing out those feelings, first by naming them. Everyone wants to skip this step but it’s the most important step.

So - go do it.

Now. Ask yourself WHY you want to plan. And then dig deeper into your answers. And, as I said, I'll be writing about creative planning for the next few weeks so we can keep exploring this together.

Then, on Feb 7, 2017 I'm offering a special Creative Dream Coaching Circle on Creative Planning and Project Management.

Crystal clear clarity on where planning mishaps come from and what to do about them.

This class is now a part of my library of resources that you get in Dream Book.